NEW MILFORD -- For the first half of Monday night's game, the New Milford High football team hung with Oxford.

Trailing by only six at halftime, the Green Wave were in good shape to notch their first win of the season. The offense had some success running and passing in the first half and the defense was effectively bottling up a potent Wolverine attack.

However, Oxford's Marcus Esteves quickly extinguished any hopes of a Green Wave upset in the third quarter.

Esteves scored all four Oxford touchdowns -- three in the third quarter alone -- in a 27-0 victory.

Esteves, a bruising 5-foot-10, 220-pound junior running back/linebacker, scored on runs of 11, 7 and two yards and returned an interception 25 yards for a score. He gained 75 yards on 11 carries, and added a sack one play before his pivotal interception gave the Wolverines a 20-0 lead with 7:23 remaining in the third quarter.

"He's a big, strong kid and he plays hard all the time," Oxford coach Joe Stochmal said. "I can't say anything bad about him. He had a big game tonight."

Oxford is 4-2 heading into a showdown on Saturday against South-West Conference foe New Fairfield, another 4-2 team, in a crucial game for both teams.

"We've just got to keep it rolling," Esteves said. "We just have to keep it going. We have some good momentum going, and we just have to keep winning."

New Milford (0-6), meanwhile, will look to pick up the pieces after another heartbreaker. The Green Wave fell in overtime to Bethel last week.

"Psychologically we're hurting, physically we're hurting," New Milford coach Chuck Lynch said. "We have to find a way to come to practice tomorrow and be ready to compete."

Though the victories have been hard to come by this season for the Wave, the determination to keep fighting has not wavered.

"That's got a lot to do with the seniors that we have," Lynch said. "We've got a really good group of seniors that have done a really good job of leading and motivating the players. They're an extension of the coaches, so we're fortunate for that. They're not going to quit. I know that."

Victory was well within the Wave's grasp Monday night. On the opening drive of the game, they mixed the passing prowess of Connor Shanahan and a complementary ground attack and drove all the way to the Oxford 5-yard line. The Wave went backward from there, however. Oxford's Chris VanKamerick broke up a pass on the goal line on second and goal. Noah Lisewski and Bucky Gumbrewicz combined to sack Shanahan for a 9-yard loss on third and goal. And a swarm of Wolverine tacklers stopped New Milford's screen pass on fourth and goal.

A touchdown there would've been huge for the Wave.

"We didn't execute was well as we could have," Lynch said.

Esteves put Oxford up 6-0 with an 11-yard scoring run early in the second quarter. The Wolverines were knocking on the door in the final seconds of the first half, but New Milford's Nick Capriglione picked off Brennen Diaz in the end zone to end the first half.

But Esteves was the star on Monday. He put the Wolverines up 13-0 with a 7-yard scoring run on the opening drive of the second half. On New Milford's ensuing drive, he picked off Shanahan on third and 14 and returned it for a touchdown to make it 20-0. His 2-yard scoring run in the final minute of the third quarter all but broke New Milford's back.

Lisewski wore the No. 69 jersey for Oxford this week in tribute to former teammate Brandon Giordano, who was killed in a car accident in March at the age of 15. Each week, a different Oxford lineman wears Giordano's jersey in his memory.

"He had a great game with a lot of tackles for us," Stochmal said of Lisewski, a 5-9, 184-pound sophomore offensive lineman and outside linebacker.